


A Night's Tail

by Jo (jmathieson)



Series: Tangents and Intersections ~ Kink Bingo 2013 [69]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Play, Animal Transformation, Community: kink_bingo, Humor, Jossed, M/M, Mission Fic, Tail Sex, Tails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:06:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmathieson/pseuds/Jo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers run afoul of a mad scientist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night's Tail

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Bingo Round Six (2013) ~ Animal Play

"And just where do you think you're going?" Clint put his hand in the middle of Phil's chest and stood in front of him with a serious expression on his face.

"The Avengers are assembling. As official SHIELD liaison to The Avengers, I'm going with them."

"Oh no you're not! You're still on restricted duty. Restricted as in no fieldwork!"

"Clint, it's OK. There will be a SHIELD armored Humvee at the scene to serve as a mobile command post. That's where I'll be. I won't be in any danger."

"You'll stay in the car?"

"Yes. As soon as we get there, I'll go straight to the car."

"And you'll stay there. No matter what happens. Promise me Phil. I'm serious. I'm not letting you come unless you promise to stay in the car no matter what."

Phil looked Clint in the eye for a moment, and then nodded.

"I promise."

"I swear, Phil, if you so much as step foot outside before the action is over, I will get Natasha to help me break both your legs. I mean it."

"I know you do, Clint. I understand. I'll just be observing and coordinating, I promise."

"OK, then. Let's get a move on, Iron Man will already be there and we don't want to miss the fun."

~~~~~

Clint landed the Quinjet on a wide boulevard in Lower Manhattan, right in front of the police cordons. Clint, Phil, Natasha, Steve, and Bruce climbed out. There was a three-storey-tall metal robot standing in the middle of the road a block away, but Clint didn't even glance at it. He stood with his hands on his hips, staring at Phil as he walked towards the large matte black Humvee with a SHIELD logo in white on the doors. He watched as Phil opened the door, gave him a little wave, and climbed in. Clint watched the door close. He counted to ten in his head. 

'So help me God, Phil, if you...' Clint shook the thoughts out of his head and turned to the rest of the team.

"So, what have we got here?"

"Big metal robot," said Natasha.

"Ow," said Clint, and slapped at his neck.

"Barton?" Phil asked in his ear.

"Mosquito bit me." 

"Why didn't they just call out the National Guard or something?" asked Bruce. "What are we doing here?"

"I think it has something to do with Director Fury's PR plan. The Avengers are apparently now Manhattan’s first line of defense against anything... weird," said Steve.

Iron Man landed with a clank, and Tony pushed up his faceplate.

"Nice of you to join us," said Natasha. "Ow." 

Clint glanced over at Nat. 

"One of your mosquitoes."

"My mosquitoes? Since when are they my mosquitoes?"

"I've been flying recon. It's not moving. It's not doing anything. I buzzed it and it didn't react at all, just stood there. Some nice craftsmanship on it, though," said Tony. 

"I'm sure whoever built it would be very pleased to hear you say that," said Natasha, still rubbing at her neck.

"Has it done anything... hostile? Stepped on any people or cars or buildings? Shot lasers? Anything?" Bruce was still trying to figure out why The Avengers had been called out to deal with a big, non-belligerent metal robot. 

"Shit. Get off. Get away from me." Tony was waving his arms in front of his face.

"Since when are there this many mosquitoes in downtown Manhattan?" said Nat.

"This isn't a mosquito, it's a goddamn wasp or a hornet or something. To hell with it." Tony slapped his faceplate back down. "Sting that!" he said.

"Ow." Bruce slapped the back of his neck. "That definitely wasn't a mosquito. Did someone kick a hornet's nest or something?"

Clint started scanning the nearby buildings, looking for a likely spot for a nest.

"It's moving." Phil's voice came over Clint's earpiece and he spun to look. The big metal robot was turning around and walking down the road. It moved with slow, lumbering steps. Iron Man took off and started doing barrel rolls around the thing's head. The rest of The Avengers broke into a slow jog and followed it. 

"It's heading back the way it came," Phil reported from the command vehicle which was pulling away from the curb and following half-a-block behind.

They followed it to a warehouse. They watched as it folded into itself and shrank down to an 8-foot tall boxy thing that shuffled through the warehouse door. Clint nocked an arrow. Natasha drew both guns. Bruce took two steps backwards. Cap and Iron Man strode through the door. Nat and Clint covered them from the doorway.

"It worked!" 

"I can't believe it!

"You owe me twenty bucks!"

"You owe me dinner!"

"I can't believe it worked!"

Tony slid his faceplate up and Clint lowered his bow so that it was pointing at kneecap level, rather than chest height. In the warehouse, clustered around the blocky metal robot, were a bunch of... scruffy-looking students. With backpacks. And glasses. And laptops. One of them took a step forward and Natasha said very distinctly, 

"Don't move," and stepped around the door of the warehouse.

"Um..." the kid put his hands up.

"What part of 'Don't move' was unclear, son?" said Captain America.

"Sorry. Um... we're unarmed."

"Barton, report," said Phil's voice in Clint's ear.

"Looks like a bunch of college kids pulled a prank, boss. No hostiles as far as we can see."

"Be careful."

"Don't worry, Nat's got them covered."

Natasha was in the process of ordering the kids to put their computers down and lie on the ground. Tony went to check out the metal robot while Nat searched the kids for weapons and Clint covered them with his bow. Steve stood there looking disappointed in them.

"It was a bet. It was for a bet," one of the kids was trying to explain.

"What kind of servos did you use in the knee joints?" Tony asked, bending to look more closely at the robot.

"Well first we were going to use..." 

"Shut up. Tony, could you not?" Nat glared over her shoulder at him.

"Sorry. There's some nice workmanship here."

"Well, if they turn out to be innocent, you can give them a scholarship or something."

"Hey, that's a great idea!"

"Clint, do you want to call in backup and do a perimeter check?"

"Um, I'll call in back-up. Why don't you do the perimeter check?" Nat glanced at him and understood. If he was going to call the SHIELD mobile command post in, he didn't want to let Coulson out of his sight.

"Sure. See you in five."

"OK boss, you and the backup team can come in. It looks clear. Nat's checking the perimeter."

~~~~~

Three hours later they were sitting around the common room on the top floor of Stark Tower with beer and popcorn while JARVIS replayed all the footage of the big metal robot from various news and social media sites.

"I gotta say, I like this style of debrief, boss." Clint grinned up at Phil from his seat on the sofa.

"Don't get used to it. This... incident turned out to be a, well, a non-incident. The college students have all been interrogated, and we are confident that they were just pulling a prank. Their robot didn't cause any actual damage to property, it just caused some... concern among citizens who are understandably still antsy about big metal robots. The students will all be doing community service as a result." 

~~~~~

Clint rolled over in bed and scratched the small of his back where a tender lump itched. He made a small frustrated noise, and Phil rolled over and looked at him.

"Sorry I woke you."

"I wasn't asleep, actually, I've been awake for a bit."

"Bad dream again?"

Phil nodded in the dark. He'd had a couple of nightmares lately, but neither of them were too concerned. Bad dreams and nightmares were par for the course for both of them.

"Tell me about it? It will distract me from this damn new bug bite or whatever it is. This was my day to be munched on by insects, apparently."

Phil was quiet.

Clint's voice softened, "Is it something Loki-related?"

"Sort of. I dreamt I was a ghost."

"Like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense?"

"More like Patrick Swayze in Ghost."

"Ah, so you knew you were dead."

"Yeah. That was the bad part."

"I can see that." Clint started scratching again.

"Do you want me to take a look at that?"

"Nah, it's just a bug bite. Probably spider or something. I'm getting soft. Back in the circus we used to wake up bitten to shit all the time. Fleas and mosquitoes and ants and God knows what."

Clint noticed that Phil was still quiet.

"Hey, c'mere." He pulled Phil into his arms and stroked his hair. "You're very solid and very alive and very here, I promise."

"Thanks, love."

"Go back to sleep."

~~~~~

"Well, that's different." Clint was sitting up in bed, holding his tail in his hands. He hadn't gone to bed last night with a tail, but he seemed to have woken up with one.

"Phil, I need you to pinch me."

Phil woke up, opened his eyes, and looked at Clint. "What the fuck?"

"You know that spider bite on the small of my back last night? Well it seems it wasn't a spider bite."

"JARVIS!"

"Yes, Agent Coulson, if I might anticipate your question, Specialist Romanov and Dr. Banner also woke up with tails this morning. Dr. Banner is already in his lab running blood tests on himself."

"Clint you should head down there right away. I'll call SHIELD medical and we'll get started on an investigation..." Phil was already out of bed and pulling on his pants.

"Hey, Phil, calm down. It's not a major disaster, it's just a tail." Clint's tail whipped back and forth a couple of times and then waved 'hello' at Phil with the tip.

"Well, you're taking this very well."

"Would you rather I be freaked out?"

"I guess not."

"I mean, I'm sure there's a sciency reason I suddenly grew a tail overnight, and I'm sure Bruce and the SHIELD docs will be able to fix it or whatever. But I think it's kinda cool. It'd be different if I had turned into a monkey or something, but just having a tail could be... I don't know, useful."

Phil looked skeptical.

"OK, OK, I'm going to Bruce's lab to let him stick me with needles and figure out the tail thing. Oh... um..." Clint had climbed out of bed and was pulling on a pair of sweatpants. "Got a pair of scissors anywhere, Phil?"

~~~~~

"So they weren't mosquitoes."

"Or wasps."

"And Cap isn't affected because the delivery stinger or syringe or whatever couldn't pierce his skin. And Tony had the suit on."

"And I was smart enough to close my face mask when the buzzy thing tried to get me."

"So the three of us have tails. Because we got stung by not-wasps that injected, what Doctor?" Natasha asked, her face stony.

"Some sort of virus that is trying to re-write our DNA," said Bruce.

Clint frowned. "That sounds bad."

"Well, the good news is that it's not succeeding."

"What's the bad news?"

"It seems to have activated our introns."

"I know what those are, I saw that episode of Star Trek!" Steve said, looking proud of himself.

"What, you mean the episode where the guy turns into a spider? That's a real thing? We're not going to turn into spiders, are we?" Clint actually sounded worried for the first time since he woke up with a tail.

"I don't think so."

"You don't think so?" Natasha's voice had gone from tight to brittle, and her tail was lashing back and forth dangerously.

"We're not going to turn into spiders. Or monkeys, which is apparently what the virus was trying to do, except that it wasn't engineered properly. So all it did is turn on the dormant genes responsible for tails in primates, like um, apes, and us."

"And you know for sure that we're not going to turn into spiders how?"

"Because our immune systems are fighting the virus very effectively. That's one of its design flaws."

"Well, thank God for incompetent mad scientists," said Tony, and then he saw Bruce's expression. "Sorry, buddy, I didn't mean..."

"So if our immune systems are fighting the virus, why did the tails grow in the first place?" asked Nat.

Bruce launched into a long and involved explanation of biology, and Clint tuned out three sentences in. As soon as there was a pause, he asked,

"So, do you, like, actually need me for anything right now?"

"Not once I've taken a blood sample, no." Clint stuck out his arm. Bruce drew a couple of vials of blood.

"If anyone needs me I'll be on the range."

~~~~~

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to see if I can use my tail to take an arrow out of my quiver, it might increase my firing speed."

"Trust you to look for an archery application for an unexpected appendage."

"Are you less freaked out about it now, Phil?" Clint asked.

"Who said I was freaked out about it?"

"This morning, you kinda were."

"A little, I guess. I was more worried that something bad had happened to you, or was going to."

"Yeah, I get that. C'mere."

Clint put his bow down and pulled Phil into a hug. He wrapped his arms and his tail around Phil.

"Is that OK?"

"Yes. It feels strange, though."

"Yeah, I'm still getting used to it myself. It's kinda nice, though, don't you think?"

"I guess. Sorry, Clint. I am finding it strange. I'll get used to it, assuming it stays around a while."

"What's the word on that?"

"Well, Bruce thinks there's a good chance that once your immune systems have completely eliminated the virus, the tails will just be re-absorbed by your bodies. And if that doesn't happen, then they can almost certainly be safely surgically removed, and they won't grow back."

Clint just nodded, not sure how he felt about the whole surgical removal part. Sure, having a tail was weird, and would probably be inconvenient in the field, but it already felt like it was part of him, and he wasn't sure he wanted it cut off just for the sake of convenience. He decided to put that discussion into the 'cross that bridge when we come to it' pile and said as much to Phil.

"Yes, of course. For now we can just wait and see, though Nat seems to be ready to take a hatchet to hers herself."

"Yeah, I guess I can see how Nat would be pretty freaked."

While they'd been talking, Clint had been stroking Phil's arm gently with his tail. Phil looked down.

"That does feel kind of nice."

"Good. I'm glad you're not freaked. I don't really want one of us to sleep on the couch tonight."

Phil flinched a little. Clint noticed. Phil saw Clint notice and gave him a rueful smile.

"OK, maybe I'm still a little freaked out. Just a tiny bit. Here," he said putting out his hand, "Let me touch it properly. I haven't done that yet. That'll help."

Clint laid the soft, furry tail across Phil's hand. It was thick and warm and covered in fur a shade darker that Clint's hair. Phil stroked it with his other hand.

"It's very soft," he said quietly, then, "What does this feel like?" he asked, running his hand along the length.

"Hmm. Like when you pet my hair. Feels really nice."

"Good." Phil smiled. "Just don't get too attached to it. Bruce seems pretty confident that they're going to disappear again soon."

"All the more reason to make the most of it while I have it," Clint said with a grin, and reached up to stroke Phil's cheek with it. Phil gave him a small smile.

"Sorry, Clint, I have to go. SHIELD has picked up the college kids for re-questioning. We need to figure out if they were involved, and if not, who could have known they were going to pull the prank and used it as a distraction to try to infect The Avengers."

"Yeah, OK. See you later, I guess."

~~~~~

Clint woke up and rolled over in bed as Phil climbed in.

"I guess this means things are back to normal, you working stupidly late and trying to sneak into bed without waking me up."

"Well, if 'normal' includes a mad scientist who's trying to take away The Avengers' powers by making them revert to apes - "

"That's what this was about? Great, and they only managed to get one of the actual super-humans, so as usual, Nat and I get hit with most of the fallout."

"Yes, well be thankful that he was an incompetent mad scientist, because if he'd succeeded in turning you into a chimpanzee, we probably wouldn’t be cuddling up to you like this right now."

"You're not freaked out about the tail thing any more, then?" Clint asked, as Phil pressed up against his back with the appendage in question between them.

"Nope. Feels kinda nice. Like you said, we may as well take advantage of it while you have it."

"Oh, really?" said Clint, "And by take advantage, you mean what, exactly?"

"That depends, do you have any thoughts on the matter?"

"Do I have any thoughts? Have we met? I was having dirty thoughts about this," Clint swished the tail out from between their bodies and stroked it along Phil's butt, "about thirty seconds after I woke up with it."

"Why am I not surprised?" said Phil, shifting one knee up as Clint began to stroke the tip of his tail across the back of Phil's balls. Phil shivered in a good way.

"Because you know me, and you love me, and we've had lots of fantastic kinky sex together. And you knew I'd be hard at work thinking of all the possibilities for a long, warm, furry tail."

Phil moaned. Clint stroked his long, warm, furry tail sinuously across Phil's balls, and then wrapped it around his dick and stroked the hardening length with it. 

"Oh, Clint. Yes. Fuck yes." Phil moaned again. 

"I take it that means you're up for me taking advantage of both you and my tail?"

"Go for it."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks always to my excellent editors t! and Shazrolane.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at: [Queen of Wands](http://jmathieson-fic.tumblr.com/)


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